Discover jameshball/osci-render Open Source project

Synthesizer for making music by drawing objects, text, and images on an oscilloscope using audio output.

This allows for 3D rendering of .obj files, .svg images, .txt files, and Blender scenes on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

You can use MIDI to interface with osci-render to make and record music.

Read more about 'Rendering shapes through audio signals' in this article featuring osci-render!

Send an email to [email protected] if you have any issues, feedback, feature requests, or anything else!

Video Demonstrations

Current Features

Render .obj files on an oscilloscope
Render .svg files
Render text
Blender integration
Software oscilloscope visualisation
Rotation of objects
Scaling images
Translating images
Applying image effects
- Bit Crush
- Vertical/Horizontal Distortion
- Image Wobble
- Smoothing
- Image Tracing
Save rendered audio to .wav file
Show current frequency of audio
MIDI control!
Frequency control
Animating image effects

Screenshots

Usage

Using osci-render is very easy; run the program and choose the file you would like to render, and it will output as audio to visualise on your oscilloscope.

By default, the program loads the example cube object. If this is working, you're good to go and should be able to load your own objects, files, or images!

Control the output using the sliders and text boxes provided. Currently the following can be controlled:

Translation and speed of translation
Weight of the lines drawn
Rotation speed
Volume/scale of the image
Frequency

There are some additional controls for .obj files:

Focal length of camera
Rotation speed
Rotation direction

Additional effects can be applied to the image such as:

Vector cancelling (every other audio sample is inverted)
Bit crush
Horizontal/Vertical distortion
Image Wobble (plays sin wave at same frequency as output)
Smoothing
Image Trace (traces out the image, drawing only a portion of the whole image)

Using osci-render with Blender

This video explains how to install and use osci-render with Blender. Below is an overview of the process, assuming you've already installed osci-render.

Download the latest Blender add-on from Releases named osci-render-blender-addon.zip
Install and enable the add-on in Blender
'osci-render settings' menu will now appear under 'Render Properties'
Open osci-render
Click 'Connect to osci-render'
- If the filename in osci-render changes to 'Rendering from external input' you have successfully connected
Add a camera to the scene (if not already present)
Add a Scene Line Art object to the scene
- Press Shift+A and navigate to Grease Pencil > Scene Line Art
Go to 'Modifier Properties' of the newly created Line Art object
Click 'Bake Line Art' under the the 'Bake' settings to generate line art for the current animation/scene/camera
You should now see the scene on your oscilloscope!

If there are any problems, please create an issue!

Using osci-render without an oscilloscope

osci-render now has a software oscilloscope built-in! It is a modified version of m1el/woscope, an amazing web-based software oscilloscope.

You can open it from Window > Open Software Oscilloscope which will open james.ball.sh/oscilloscope in your default browser.

If there are any problems, please create an issue!

MIDI

You can use MIDI to control the frequency of the output - just plug in or open a MIDI software/hardware device and open osci-render and start playing notes!

To control the sliders using a MIDI slider or knob from a physical device, do the following:

First, plug-in MIDI device
Open osci-render
Click MIDI logo next to the slider you want to control
Red means the slider is 'armed' and waiting for you to choose a MIDI key to associate it with
Move a CC slider/knob etc. on your MIDI device
The MIDI logo now turns green, and is controlled by your MIDI device!

Installing

Head over to Releases and download the latest .exe, .pkg, .deb, or .jar.

.exe, .pkg, or .deb is recommended, if possible, as it is simpler to get up and running.

Installing using .exe (Windows)

Download the latest osci-render-VERSION.exe from Releases
Open the .exe skipping any Windows security warnings
It should open briefly and then close without any user input
Check your start menu for osci-render or open osci-render.exe at C:\Program Files\osci-render
Start rendering!

Updating to later versions is as simple as running the latest osci-render-VERSION.exe again.

To uninstall, use Windows control panel, as you would expect.

Installing using .pkg (macOS)

Download the latest osci-render-VERSION.pkg from Releases
Since I haven't paid for a developer licence, you'll be warned that it is from an 'unidentified developer' when trying to run the installer
To mitigate this, do the following (explained on the macOS User Guide)
- Locate the downloaded .pkg file in Finder
- Control-click the file, and choose Open from the shortcut menu
- Click Open
Follow the steps in the installer
Open osci-render from Launchpad
- On Ventura (latest macOS), you will need to right-click and choose 'Open' to bypass the '"osci-render" is damaged and can't be opened' error. More details here.
- Again, this is because I haven't paid for a developer licence
Start rendering!

Installing using .deb (Ubuntu)

Download the latest osci-render_VERSION-1_amd64.deb from Releases
Install as usual, according to your distro
- e.g. on Ubuntu, just double click to open and choose software installer
After installing, you can execute /opt/osci-render/bin/osci-render to run!
Start rendering!

Running using .jar (all platforms)

Download the latest osci-render-os-VERSION.jar from Releases
- Download the version that is relevant to your OS, otherwise the program will not open
- i.e. osci-render-win-VERSION.jar for Windows and osci-render-unix-VERSION.jar for Linux
Download and install Java 19 or later
Run the following command from your terminal to run the .jar, substituting the correct path to your .jar file
java "-Dfile.encoding=UTF8" -jar "PATH/TO/osci-render-os-VERSION.jar"
Start rendering!

Building

I am using Maven for dependency management and to package the program. Doing the following will setup the project. I highly recommend using IntelliJ.

Download and install Java 19 or later
Run git clone [email protected]:jameshball/osci-render.git
Open the project in IntelliJ
I use SceneBuilder to edit the GUI
- The FXML project files for each GUI element are located in src/main/resources/fxml
You're good to go!

You should now be able to run sh.ball.gui.Launcher and start the program 😊

Contact

James Ball, [email protected]

Special Thanks

'Rendering shapes through audio signals' article author: Sudarshan Sreeram

@javierplano_videonix for testing and providing advice as an artist

jameshball/osci-render

jameshball

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